


As they were drinking all

by elentari7



Series: The first rule of flying [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefly Setting, Gen, M/M, No beta we die like cas apparently, and to counteract the last installment, here are some Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27421087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elentari7/pseuds/elentari7
Summary: late October 2522, POV CastielThe crew takes a break. Kevin has never had a drink before. Castiel has never witnessed a barfight before. This'll end splendidly.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Everyone being friends basically
Series: The first rule of flying [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/284175
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	As they were drinking all

**Author's Note:**

> CW for background violence (there's a brawl; one person is threatened with broken glass but it isn't used) and misogynists in a bar (w/ associated mentions of homophobic and ableist bullshit).

It’s rare that they dock anywhere casually long enough for everyone to go out for a drink together, and Castiel is finding the opportunity very educational.

Well, not  _ everyone _ is at the bar currently, because Dean would absolutely never leave Impala unattended, let alone her most precious contents, which are still refusing to leave the ship. Castiel thinks that’s probably a good idea. The bar wouldn’t be the most relaxing environment for Sam. It’s a dim, cacophonous, frankly alarming-smelling establishment--he believes the technical term is “dive”--and swarming with strangers. If Sam will be safe with anyone it’ll be Benny; perhaps, stuck alone on the ship, they’ll even speak to each other. Benny hadn’t been especially pleased about Dean heading to a bar, but had allowed himself to be placated by Jo, Charlie, and, oddly, Castiel all going with him. And Gabriel is predictably off doing who knows what. Whatever trouble he’s getting himself into, Castiel doubts it’s something he hasn’t gotten himself out of before. At the moment Castiel is most worried for Kevin, and by the look on his face, Kevin is too.

“C’mon, Kev, loosen up.” The more senior crew members don’t seem to share their concern; Dean in particular, whose idea this outing had been, is grinning wider than Castiel’s ever seen him. (He wonders if this is the expression Jo likes to loudly refer to as shit-eating. It is a highly suspicious expression.) “That was the whole point of this little outing.”

“I thought the whole point was getting some booze,” Meg interjects from the corner of the oddly-shaped booth, where she’s sitting with one leg slung up on the table. Jo shoots her a dirty look from her place at Dean’s side, where she’s been monitoring his intake of--as far as Castiel can tell--plain water. “And possibly some action.”

“Thanks for that overshare,” Jo snipes at her across Castiel.

“Hey, if Meg’s looking for sex she should be able to say she’s looking for sex,” Charlie jumps in, “though, actually, you might have more luck reeling someone in  _ not  _ sitting all the way back in the dark corner, looking like you wanna kill the next person who talks to you…”

Meg quirks an eyebrow. “Not anyone interesting.”

“The whole point,” Dean says loudly, to Castiel’s relief, “was to get Kevin here out and about. Breathe some fresh air,” ignoring Jo’s snort, “get a few drinks in him, see what happens.”

“I don’t really  _ know  _ what’s gonna happen,” Kevin says. “I don’t think I really  _ wanna  _ know.”

“But you’re a doctor.” Charlie elbows him. “Dontcha have to know what happens when you put alcohol in a body?”

Kevin’s put-upon face is very familiar by now. “I was a  _ medical student _ . I was  _ studying  _ to be a doctor. I was really  _ busy  _ studying to be a doctor and never found time to experiment with what it personally feels like to get  _ wasted _ !”

“You sayin’ you’re a lightweight?” Jo laughs at Kevin’s noise of frustration. It is, to Castiel, a startlingly merry sound. Jo’s clearly not a lightweight, but her own alcohol consumption seems to be relaxing her considerably. Even as she and Meg steadily, passive-aggressively, competitively drink their way through a bottle of indeterminate contents, which, if he weren’t sandwiched between them, would be very amusing. As it is, Castiel thinks he’s within his rights to feel trapped.

Dean beams and says “No time like the present. You wanna start with one of Charlie’s weird sugary things?” He waggles his glass of water and his eyebrows. “Or if you wanna be really bold, you can have what I’m having.” Castiel is slightly confused. It’s a feeling he’s been getting accustomed to with the benefit of many a full-crew mealtime, and he’s coming to find it comfortable.

Jo drains her glass and looks around for the bottle she filled it from, but Meg has a firm grip on it over in her corner and Castiel has learned by observation that trying to out-glare Meg is an enterprise doomed to failure. Jo only makes a token effort before standing and heading for the bar. Dean grins disarmingly up at her. “Next round?”

She kicks him in the shin. The different ways Dean’s people express affection for each other still puzzle Castiel. “Not your waitress, Winchester.”

She still, Castiel notes, gets another glass of water at the bar, along with a refill of Charlie’s violently blue concoction.

He goes on alert as she turns away from the bar, because she is waylaid by a small group of strangers--all men, all, if Castiel is reading their body language correctly, inebriated. “Whoa, tiger,” Meg murmurs. “Relax. She can fuck ’em up without spilling her drinks.” 

This does not relax him. “Is that a likely occurrence?” He can hear the men above the ambient noise, which means they’re being very loud. “Hey, little lady,” one of them is saying, which is an objectively accurate descriptor but still makes Cas’s skin crawl; “You look lonely.” Following the eyelines of the speaker’s companions almost makes Cas jerk his gaze away, affronted.

Jo smiles, which the men appear to take as encouragement, then says “Nope” just as loudly. She passes them by as they gape in surprise. “Whaddaya mean, nope?” one of the men calls after her, confirming either his drunkenness or his low intelligence.

The entire crew derives much amusement from the episode, welcoming Jo back with cackles and commiserations and a fist bump (from Charlie), though Dean is visibly repressing his protective instinct. She rolls her eyes and slides everyone’s drinks across the table before climbing back into her seat. “I deserve this,” she declares, picking up her own glass. Castiel is inclined to agree.

Even as conversation and teasing of Kevin resumes, however, it becomes clear that the men she rejected feel differently. They are still being very loud. Cas follows Jo’s lead in pretending she can’t hear them generating what they seem to consider insulting theories about girls “like that,” the conclusion that amuses them most--in a close second to homosexuality--being that they’re crazy. They find this so amusing, in fact, that it distracts them into slurs on the mentally ill in general, expanding the category from women who reject them to every other type of human they don’t like. Cheaters and sticklers, lawmen and browncoats, are all included; it seems an improbable category. Castiel, and probably half the room, would like very much to not be able to hear them.

But they don’t lower their voices as they move on to extremely rude suggestions for the treatment of mental illness. Metaphorical steam starts coming out of Kevin’s ears.

When Cas’s glance strays to Dean, he finds him sitting stiffly with his hands clenched around his glass, his eyes boring holes into the empty space just to the right of Castiel’s head. Castiel has just opened his mouth, just begun to reach across the table when Dean sighs sharply, puts the glass down with a clunk, and gets up.

“Dean,” Jo says warningly. 

He steps casually out of her reach. “What, I want a cherry and a little umbrella in my water.”

Kevin, now red in the face, makes an aborted attempt to follow Dean to the bar, but Charlie seizes his sleeve. “Easy, cowboy.”

“He’s gonna do something stupid,” Jo mutters, making to get up herself as Dean winds his way through the tables scattered around the room. She is prevented, rather suddenly, by Meg’s leg sliding down off the table to clamp across her lap. Meg is wearing her most pleased, cat-in-the-cream smirk. “Finish your drink, sweetheart. It’s been a slow night, I could use some entertainment.”

Jo shoves fruitlessly at the boot in her lap and glares at its owner.

Castiel, with Meg’s legs unexpectedly crossed in his lap, feels rather like his brain has shut down.

He isn’t sure what exactly he’s doing for the next half minute, aside from  _ not  _ concentrating, to his utmost ability, on what is suddenly lying across his legs; but he quickly remembers Dean. Dean is going to do something stupid. He should be paying attention. Yes.

He wrenches his attention away from Jo and Meg hissing at each other across him (and from the smirks Meg sends his way), cursorily checks that Kevin has not in fact exploded (Charlie seems to be simultaneously wrestling to keep him in his seat and climbing over him out of hers), and finds Dean leaning against the bar. His head is cocked to one side. His posture is far too relaxed. He is facing the small gang of offensively stupid bar patrons, and from what little of his face is visible from this angle, he is grinning in a way that makes Castiel’s pulse jump even as his stomach drops. “Oh no.”

It’s barely out of his mouth before the leading imbecile punches Dean in the mouth.

“Aaaaand we’re out,” Charlie says, dragging Kevin out of the booth. “Meg, take care of the tab.” She throws down a handful of credits as she speaks. Jo curses and darts out of her seat as Meg, laughing, finally lets her stand, and throws herself into the brawl that has descended upon the bar. Castiel is up after her like lightning, every instinct and ingrained response already locked in on the nearest aggressor, on finding his people in the fray--to the point that he does not notice Charlie running interference until she already has him by the arm. Her grip is surprisingly viselike. Her expression is similarly immovable. “Nope. We are out of here before our dear captain brings the place down on our heads.”

He digs in. “Meg--”

“Insists on taking care of herself, how long’ve you known her? She’ll have fun, Dean’ll get it out of his system, Jo’ll keep him from dying, we will exit stage Impala. Trust me, we have a protocol.”

Castiel is taken aback by the implications of having a protocol for Dean getting into barfights. This, he tells himself, is why Charlie succeeds at physically dragging him away.

He has to admit, though, that the situation--what he can see of it, at any rate, as Charlie expertly winds her way around the violence and he has to peer through the flying fists and flying bottles and flying furniture--seems to accurately follow her protocol. He can’t help but note and appreciate Meg’s casual decking of the first person to barrel past her as she unfolds herself from her spot in the corner. He almost flinches at the savage glee with which Dean ducks a bottle, twists its wielder’s arm to take the weapon, and shatters it over the man’s back. He is frankly impressed--as is everyone in the room, he thinks, except the disgruntled bartender who was just coming up with a shotgun and had to duck again--by Jo’s maneuver of flipping the man who charges her over the bar. Kevin’s jaw drops, and Charlie seems to be repressing a smile. Castiel catches Jo’s eye as she straightens and sends her a nod across the room; her lips part in surprise, then quirk up at the corner in acknowledgment. She looks suitably pleased with herself, until her eyes catch on something off to Castiel’s right and widen in horror.

There is very little time for Castiel to process what happens, but he does recall following Jo’s gaze, seeing Dean pinned to a table by three other men, and registering the broken bottle held aloft by the fourth. He remembers vividly the bloodied grin still fixed on Dean’s face.

After that, there’s only the impact of hands to a kidney, a wrist, a jawbone; of feet to the backs of knees.

Castiel makes sure to catalogue his opponents--always prudent to ascertain that they are truly down--and then tosses aside the sharp-edged glass and turns to Dean.

Dean is still lying on the table, chest heaving, recently-freed arms hovering like he’s not sure what to do with them now. Jo is still across the room at the bar, having had no time to move. Both have their eyes fixed on Castiel in open shock. 

The silence is broken by a wolf-whistle behind him.

Dean immediately snaps out of it, his gaze darting to a point over Castiel’s shoulder in a glare. “Meg…”

“That was smokin’,” comes her voice from the doorway, followed by the muffled thud of Charlie shoving her. Cas ignores the heat creeping up the back of his neck at the attention from all sides to help Dean get himself upright. He has to catch Dean by the arm to steady him, once he’s standing. Over his shoulder he catches Jo’s eye. She sends him a nod of her own.

“Um, guys…” When Kevin finally makes his presence known, it is at an unnaturally high pitch. He is probably focused on the shotgun the fully recovered bartender is now pointing in his patrons’ general direction.

Jo slaps a few more credits on the bar right in front of the gun. “Sorry about the mess.” She kicks one of her groaning opponents out of the way. Before Dean, who has opened his mouth to make a no doubt unhelpful response to that apology, can say anything, she has crossed the room, grabbed him by the collar, and begun dragging him toward the door. Charlie and Kevin are already gone, and Meg joins Cas covering their exit. Her smile is sharp as a knife.

***

Benny takes one look at his returning crewmates and groans in resignation. “I  _ liked  _ that bar!” 

“Well, we better hit atmo before the patrons scrape themselves off the floor,” Jo calls, already halfway up the stairs to the cockpit. “I’ll leave Gabe a message, he can meet us later.”

“And I should probably make sure you haven’t broken anything, or ruptured anything, or pulled anything, or bruised anything important,” Kevin patters in Dean’s direction. “I mean, your spine got slammed pretty hard, have you had whiplash before? Also you’ve got a bruise right--”

“Aw, c’mon.” Dean is grinning again and has been the whole way back to the ship, though he doesn’t even try to fight the thorough once-over his first mate gives him in search of injuries. “Got the bad guys before they did any real damage.” His cheeky, slightly dopey grin changes focus to Castiel at that, and while the urge to shake Dean for his idiotic cheerfulness at putting himself in physical danger does not decrease, the acknowledgment warms him. He represses an answering smile, shakes his head at Dean, and turns away.

There is a snort from somewhere above his head. Sam, it turns out, has been sitting on the catwalk with his legs dangling into the bay, and is currently rolling his eyes hard enough that Castiel is mildly concerned he’ll strain them. He and Dean turn simultaneously to locate the source of the snort, and regard him with identical quizzical expressions. Sam throws his hands in the air and rolls to his feet, heading for his shuttle. Castiel and Dean transfer the quizzical looks to each other.

“I hear you, brother,” Benny mutters under his breath, and walks away pretending not to hear Dean’s petulant “what?” over the rumble of the igniting engines and rising ramp.

**Author's Note:**

> I somehow made Jo into both Leia AND Han.
> 
> That's all the prose I had lying around for this series, but I found some detailed old outlines, so if I get around to any later scenes I may scribble 'em out and post.


End file.
